College Sports Blog

Columnist: Big 12 needs conference championship game

Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby was busy last week, meeting with his conference’s athletic directors Monday and Tuesday before filing a request with the NCAA for a waiver that would allow the Big 12 to have a conference championship game without expanding.

“If the Big 12 can grease the wheels of the NCAA and land a Big 12 championship game, the only logical move for the league is to pull the trigger and make it happen,” Felder wrote. “As for expansion? Bowlsbly makes a clear point on that front during the aforementioned Associated Press report as well, saying, ‘We are unconvinced at this point that larger is better.’”

With only 10 teams, by NCAA rule, the Big 12 cannont have a Big 12 title game. Splitting the teams into divisions would be tricky, as well. Three of the four teams that have left the conference over the past two years were once in the Big 12 North. TCU and West Virginia, the conference’s newest additions, are nowhere near each other, geographically speaking.

Six of the 10 teams in the Big 12 are either in the state of Texas or Oklahoma. Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State and West Virginia are the other four. Could the Big 12 split itself into eastern and western divisions? Or completely ignore geographic factors altogether? Whatever it takes, Felder believes the Big 12 should do whatever it is to make a Big 12 title game happen.

“Pretty clear where the league falls in that regard, and I tend to agree,” Felder continued. “There is no real value to be gained through the addition of any realistic target, outside of Notre Dame. It has a very robsut conference schedule due to the round-robin play, and the league’s television deal puts it near the top of the collegiate landscape. Throw in the grant-of-rights deal that the conference has, and in the forseeable future there will be stability. If the conference can get the wavier through, that would be like having its proverbial cake and eating it too — staying at 10 teams, the possibility of round-robin scheduling plus the cash grab of the Big 12 championship game to close out the year in a big way.”